Bible Stories for the Young
Green triangles are narrated and fully illustrated and will have simple animation added along the way. Yellow triangles have narration, but the illustrations aren't done yet. Videos with red triangles are planned. New and updated videos will be added very often.
To download, right-click the download button above and select "Save Link As" or "Download Linked File"
After Jesus’ nice parade into town on the donkey, Jesus and His disciples went to the temple courts.
But as Jesus looked around, He saw something NOT nice. God’s shadow house, the temple, was supposed to be a place for worshipping God, but it was being used like a big market or store. It was filled with people buying and selling stuff!
Some greedy people had set up shops in the temple for selling animals so that they could make money off the people’s sacrifices to God.
When Jesus saw this, something started to rise up in His heart. A Godly anger began to burn hot, hot, hot inside Him. He went over to a table full of coins and knocked it over! He made a whip with some cords and drove out all the animals. “Yaw! Yaw!” He yelled. “Get these out of here! Out! Out! Out! Stop turning My Father’s House into a market!”
He knocked over the tables full of money, and He broke open the bird cages and set the birds free.
“This is My Father’s House! My Dad’s House is a house of prayer! But you have turned it into a pit of robbers.”
Do you understand why Jesus was angry? It wasn’t wrong for Him to be angry, and He wasn’t being mean. How do you think your dad would act if some thieves came to your house? Your dad would say, “Get out! Out! Out of here!”
And if that’s how your dad would act if he needed to defend and protect his house, don’t you think Jesus has that same energy to protect His Father’s House?! Yes, you better believe it!
Jesus was confronting people who were using religion to make money for themselves or for the things they want.
Today, religious organizations often still have greedy people in charge who try to get money for their own purposes by squeezing money from others and calling it “tithing.” Many things like this happen that are not holy and right. And Jesus still feels the same way about it.
Jesus had some emotion when it came to defending His Father’s House. It was written: “Zeal for Your House is a consuming fire inside of Me that I can’t stop!” And if that’s how Jesus feels about defending His Daddy’s House, do you think we should feel the same way too? Yes! We can and should have that same attitude for God’s House that Jesus has! We should be very careful to never, never, never accept anything in God’s House that the Father doesn’t accept.
Through this big story, can you see that no matter which dwelling place of God it was… Holiness was always the most important thing in God’s House? And these were just the shadow houses. Wait until you see how He feels about the REAL one — that Temple Ezekiel saw that was still coming, coming, coming. That one not made with stones.